Yeah, but they’re making it for ideological reasons, and get to drive those rails through whatever territory they want without having to take opinions or profitability into account. Companies in the West that build rails have to do so profitably*, and with consent from the locals, both of which are major hurdles.
*Except in the UK, where they can piss away as much money as they want and get constantly propped up by the taxpayer while simultaneously paying vast sums to executives and shareholders.
The US has a concept of eminent domain, which it has used in the past to build fairly fast affordable rail (and highways). There’s no reason it can’t work today except the fact our politicians are owned by car lobbiests.
We’ve should have nationalized high speed rail the same way we have a nationalized interstate highway system. Not everything needs to be privatized for profit.
When they put up highways, they very *very" often bulldozed through poor black neighborhoods. They didn’t care.
I don’t suggest we start doing that again, but the US had and has the capability to build out a fantastic trail system, but the highway system is lobbied for hard by car manufacturers.
AMTRAK gets like an eighth of the federal funding that roads get.
Yeah, but they’re making it for ideological reasons, and get to drive those rails through whatever territory they want without having to take opinions or profitability into account. Companies in the West that build rails have to do so profitably*, and with consent from the locals, both of which are major hurdles.
*Except in the UK, where they can piss away as much money as they want and get constantly propped up by the taxpayer while simultaneously paying vast sums to executives and shareholders.
The US has a concept of eminent domain, which it has used in the past to build fairly fast affordable rail (and highways). There’s no reason it can’t work today except the fact our politicians are owned by car lobbiests.
We’ve should have nationalized high speed rail the same way we have a nationalized interstate highway system. Not everything needs to be privatized for profit.
When they put up highways, they very *very" often bulldozed through poor black neighborhoods. They didn’t care.
I don’t suggest we start doing that again, but the US had and has the capability to build out a fantastic trail system, but the highway system is lobbied for hard by car manufacturers.
AMTRAK gets like an eighth of the federal funding that roads get.
How profitable are highways?